Uke in aikido is the one who attacks the partner and receives the technique. It means that the main and necessary thing to know to be uke is how to fall.

I always liked being Uke. Twelve years ago when I started Aikido I was very grateful to my various colleagues, for how they guided me, both as nage and as uke, really still them being uke and me nage, it was them who lead me in my great inability, they had patience to wait when I fell and got up, watching not to do me any harm and teaching me a lot.

Meanwhile my current teacher has worked hard to strengthen and improve my posture, he told me many times not to lower my head and eventually obtained a good result, now he only rarely repeats it. In addition he is constantly trying to improve my martial attitude with exercises for example screaming when making techniques. When we started these exercises my cries were weak, barely audible, also the kiai in the work of weapons, meanwhile I have changed, whenever we have to yell, my voice is heard all over the tatami, like those of the other hakama.

When we are nage we concentrate on doing well the technique, naturally at the same time we take care of our fellow Uke, but our main concern is that we get the technique right, especially in the case of a uke who gets stronger, that is where we truly discover whether the technique works or not using our center and our hip to control him. Although I think being uke should not prevent nage to do the technique.

When we are Uke our approach should be to connect with nage and follow him, letting him to lead, like in a dance, which is an example used many times when speaking of aikido. Give time to our partner to develop his technique to improve. We should try to relax as much as possible and always keep in touch with nage, go down when needed by pain or discomfort. And when we do chained techniques and fall we must try again to get up and follow nage where he takes us to enjoy both. This is what our teacher has compared to a conversation, uke is the one that follows the thread of the conversation begun by nage.

Recently, the teacher reiterated to work the attitude and maintain a strong stance as nage, rooted to the ground, a position that does not disturb us, even if the attack is strong with great intention. We repeated the work of weapons, especially with the bokken in connection with the techniques of Aikido, to see where they come from, something I think should be repeated throughout our training.

Being uke we must act differently depending on the level of our companion, with a beginner we should have patience, try to guide him, measure our strength or intention, take into account the physical of nage, let him do the technique, but making him work to get better. With one of our level or higher we should attack strongly and sincerely, being relaxed and letting us to be carried along, the more relaxed we are, the better our fall or the better our endurance of the control will be.

And a tip of personal hygiene as uke we must have short nails to not to hurt nage and short hair or secured with a rubber band so that nage won't step on it.